CMS penalties work in boosting infection control

May 1, 2012 11:38am

Hitting hospitals in their pocket books is an effective method to trying to stop infections, according to an American Journal of Infection Controlstudy, published yesterday. Eighty-one percent of more than 300 surveyed acute care hospitals said Medicare penalties directly resulted in increased anti-infection efforts, according to the research announcement.

The CMS policy, however, had some unintended consequences. One-third of infection preventionists said their hospitals shifted resources away from nontargeted infections to focus on the targeted infections. They also said hospitals were concentrating on physician documentation and coding practices to avoid penalties over enhancing infection prevention for improved outcomes.

"As CMS expands the list of complications for which it will adjust payment and continues to modify its requirements for reporting, it is critical to ensure that policy changes lead to measureable improvements in patient outcomes while minimizing potential unintended consequences," the study authors stated.